Nigel Farage causes outrage after claiming that slave trader Edward Colston was a 'philanthropist'

Nigel Farage has caused outrage after he attempted to speak out against the removal of Edward Colston's statue in Bristol because the slave trader was a 'philanthropist'.

During an appearance on Good Morning Britain on Tuesday, the Brexit Party leader lashed out at the protestors who removed the statue of Colston and dumped it into a river because of the violent manner in which they did it.

Addressing Farage, host Piers Morgan said:

You agreed with the German democratic decision to remove Adolf Hitler statues.

If it's right for Germany to remove statues of Hitler, who oppressed their people, why is it wrong for the people of Bristol to say that they don't want to have Edward Colston's statue to stay up given that he was a slave owner and a slave trader, responsible for the deaths of 20,000 people?

In response, Farage said:

Because they did it as a violent mob, making their own decisions on what they thought was right and wrong. Bear in mind that Edward Colston made a lot of money out of the Royal African Company, he then was a big philanthropist and there are many public buildings all over Bristol named after Edward Colston.

Other guests that were part of the debate could be heard saying 'how dare you' and 'Jimmy Saville was a philanthropist' while Farage was giving his answer.

One of the guests, Dr Shola Mos-Shogbamimu then gave Farage both barrels after he tried to claim that Black Lives Matter was a 'far-left Marxist' organisation, telling him that "the only thing you are an expert in is talking out of your backside because everything you say stinks."

Farage's name was soon trending on Twitter following this exchange with many applaud at what the former leader of UKIP had said with others reveling in the sight of Farage having his backside handed to him.

Even Morgan had a pop at him.

Farage had compared the protesters who took part in demonstrations across the UK last weekend to the Taliban and called upon the government to act quickly. Still, if Farage is so keen on retrieving the statue perhaps he can ask these chaps who were pictured on Monday actually trying to fish the statue out of Bristol harbour.